Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that individuals tend to believe they embody at least one of the key virtues of morality.
In this quote, F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects on the human tendency to self-reflect and identify with certain moral virtues, suggesting that everyone, to some degree, has a belief in their own ethical worth. This introspection highlights the complexity of human nature, where we often see ourselves as possessing qualities that are deemed virtuous, despite our flaws and failings.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about personal values in a philosophy class.
Don't be so anxious about it,' she laughed. 'I'm not used to being loved. I wouldn't know what to do; I never got the trick of it.' She looked down at him, shy and fatigued. 'So here we are. I told you years ago that I had the makings of Cinderella.' He took her hand; she drew it back instinctively and then replaced it in his. 'Beg your pardon. Not even used to being touched. But I'm not afraid of you, if you stay quiet and don't move suddenly.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
It was about then [1920] that I wrote a line which certain people will not let me forget: "She was a faded but still lovely woman of twenty-seven."
The words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.
But you can love more than just one person, can't you?
A sudden gust of rain blew over them and then another - as if small liquid clouds were bouncing along the land. Lightning entered the sea far off and the air blew full of crackling thunder. The table cloths blew around the pillars. They blew and blew and blew. The flags twisted around the red chairs like live things, the banners were ragged, the corners of the table tore off through the burbling billowing ends of the cloths.
As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I've always wondered how on earth people of good will could have conceivably lived with Jim Crow - with the daily degradations, the lynchings in plain sight, and, as the movement gathered force, with the fire hoses and the police dogs and the billy clubs.
To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze; from our side you have nothing more to fear; no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.
Be truthful. Nature only sides with truth.
The biography of a writer - or even the autobiography - will always have this incompleteness.
Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin?
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